Art
The Douro River runs through the middle of Portugal. It cuts west to east from the Spanish border until it spills into the Atlantic Ocean. Steep rugged cliffs, rising up four to five hundred metres, flank the route of the river. The heat in summer on those cliffs climbs to 120 degrees or more. There is no shade. The soil is baked dry. To walk upon it is to sink into layers of dust. It is a land not fit for people or for many other living things. And yet within this inhospitable terrain, not navigable by car or tractor or any other motorized accessory, lies the heart of the port wine industry and a grape so hardy its roots can tunnel up to 30 metres deep into the rocky soil in search of water.
Golf Goodness
The sixth annual Birdies for Baseball charity golf tournament will take place Saturday, Oct. 23 at Mink Meadows Golf Club in Vineyard Haven.
Enjoy breakfast, lunch, great prizes and of course, golf.
Fee is $90 per player with sponsorships available. All proceeds benefit the VBI Scholarship and field maintenance funds.
For more information, call 508-989-8154. To register, call 508-693-0600.
Popping Piggies
Popcorn with butter and salt while seated in front of a movie? That’s just so yesterday’s news. How about popcorn with slow roasted pig while watching live capoeira, visiting farm animals or pressing cider. Sounds too good to be true? Well, this Saturday, Oct. 9 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. all this and more are taking place at the eighth annual popcorn festival and fundraiser at the Native Earth Teaching Farm off North Road in Chilmark.
Tisbury Harvest Festival
The Tisbury School will be hosting their annual Harvest Festival on Sunday, Oct. 10 from 3 to 5 p.m.
The festival includes a potluck supper, hayrides, live music, pumpkin decorating, face painting, games and more. The Harvest Festival is part of the Tisbury School’s continued community outreach program. The event is hosted and sponsored by the Tisbury School PTO. All games and activites are free of charge.
Bring a dish to share.
Eating chocolate is often compared to generating the swoony feelings of being in love, but true chocolate aficionados deny this. Chocolate is better, they maintain. Stronger. The passions it generates are far more urgent.
Consider this: You stand before a candy store case of chocolates, and the array overwhelms you. Chocolate-covered marshmallows, chocolate-covered almonds, fruits, buttercream, caramel. You brace both hands against the counter, you sigh, you wish you could order one of everything, but that would turn your stomach into an exploded Bunsen burner.
BACKING INTO FORWARD. By Jules Feiffer. Nan. A. Talese / Doubleday, 2010. 464 pages, photographs. $30 hardcover.
Jules Feiffer is one of our icons in the hall of fame that includes Mike Wallace, Beverly Sills, Bill Styron and Walter Cronkite. Island icons are colossi in the big wide world, and brand-makers of the Vineyard as a place that harbors the rich and famous and give-backers to the community. The billionaires who build bulgy houses come and go.